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Video Premiere: Clara Kim Performs Two Mythological Birds (Nelson)

Today, I CARE IF YOU LISTEN is premiering another beautifully-shot new music video from Four/Ten Media featuring Clara Kim of the Argus Quartet performing Jordan Nelson‘s solo violin work Two Mythological Birds.

Program Note

The Gandaberunda is a giant two-headed bird from Hindu Mythology. The animal is described as possessing immense magical strength. Depictions of the Gandaberunda often show the bird carrying a full-grown elephant in each of its two beaks.

The Byangoma, from Bengali mythology, is a fortune-telling bird known for only helping those it deems worthy. Every person is said to experience the Byangoma’s fortune-telling differently: Some claim to hear a voice, others receive visions. The most common experience is, upon hearing the bird’s songs, to suddenly have an intuition about a future event.

Two Mythological Birds was premiered by Clara Kim on September 29, 2012 in Los Angeles, CA.

Jordan’s recent projects have included music for soprano and string quartet (Tender Buttons), a commissioned work for the L.A. piano duo HOCKET (Slow The Light), a piece for violin, cello, and fixed-media electronics (Vox Submersi) commissioned by Lina Bahn and Matt Haimovitz and based upon George Crumb’s ‘Vox Balaenae’, and a work for four violins and spoken word (Ember I Miss You) commissioned by MoVE.

In 2016, Jordan graduated with his D.M.A. in Composition from the University of Southern California (USC) Thornton School of Music.Jordan earned his M.M. in Composition from the USC Thornton School of Music in 2009, and in 2006 earned his B.A. in Music from Yale University.Jordan’s primary composition teachers include Donald Crockett, Stephen Hartke, Frank Ticheli, Sean Friar, Andrew Norman, Morten Lauridsen, and Kathryn Alexander.Jordan is currently a member of the Music Theory and Ear Training faculty at the Colburn Conservatory, and he previously taught at West Chester University, the USC Thornton School of Music, and Yale University.

About Clara Kim

Adventure and collaboration are at the heart of violinist Clara Kim’s multi-faceted career as new music performer, chamber musician, and educator. Clara is the first prize winner of the 2012 International Solo Violin Competition in Cremona, Italy, first prize winner of the MPrize Chamber Arts Competition with the Argus Quartet, and participant of the Kronos and American Soundscapes workshops at Carnegie Hall in New York City. She has performed at Carnegie’s Weill and Zankel halls, Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw and Spiegelzaal, as well as Muziekgebouw aan ‘t Ij, Roulette, Bang on a Can at Noguchi Museum, Caramoor Center for Music and the Arts, the Shalin Liu Performance Center at Rockport Music, Albany Symphony’s American Music Festival, Music Academy of the West, Princeton Sound Kitchen, and James Madison University’s Contemporary Music Festival.

Clara has enjoyed working with some of today’s most celebrated and imaginative composers – Chris Theofanidis, Martin Bresnick, Michael Gordon, Augusta Read Thomas, Grammy Award-winning Stephen Hartke, Kaija Saariaho, Jacob TV, and the Sleeping Giant Collective. She has actively commissioned, premiered, and championed works by both established and emerging artists, often resulting in multiple projects over multiple years by the same composer. These have included works by Donald Crockett, Andrew Norman, Juri Seo, Daniel Silliman, Eric Guinivan, Jordan Nelson, and Thomas Kotcheff, among many others. Her quartet has received a Chamber Music Commissioning Grant and a Tarisio Trust Young Artists Grant in support of several of these collaborative projects.

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